The Lobster · written by Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthimis Filippou · 2015

The Maid awards extra hotel days to successful hunters; David has caught no one, and Room 302’s guest has not returned.

Scene 32 of 123 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act two

Maid
Warden Waiter

Act oneAct two

Begins 22 min into a 1:28 film

The story so farBefore scene 32

After his wife leaves him, David has 45 days to find a partner at a hotel or become an animal; he escapes, falls for a shortsighted loner, and must decide whether to surrender his sight so they can stay together.

Scenes 1–15
David moves from his broken home into the hotel, where couplehood is imposed as the norm.
Scenes 16–24
He must find a partner before the 45-day limit turns him into an animal.
Scene 25
David loads a tranquilliser gun and joins the hotel’s hunt, entering its violent courtship system.
Just before
Scene 29
Heartless Woman chases down a young loner, beats her unconscious, and shoots her with a tranquilliser gun.
Scene 30
Two hotel guests argue and hit each other while trying to claim one unconscious loner.
Scene 31
David shoots repeatedly at a loner but misses, runs out of darts, and stops on a rock.
Scene 32
This scene

32EXT. HOTEL ENTRANCE - EVENING

The hotel guests are lined up in front of the coach. Some of them have unconscious bodies of loners beside them. The Maid holding a folder goes to each hotel guest in turn and announces to them how many extra days’ stay at the hotel they have earned based on the number of loners they have captured. She first shines a light in their faces and then on the bodies beside each guest. She comes first to Lisping Man.

MAID

Room 186, one loner, one extra day.

38 days’ stay left, plus one, 39.

She then goes to Heartless Woman.

MAID (CONT’D)

Room 290, four loners, four extra

days. 154 days’ stay left, plus

four, 158.

Next is Limping Man.

MAID (CONT’D)

Room 206. The days of your stay

remain unchanged.

She then goes to David. He has taken no prisoners.

MAID (CONT’D)

Room 101. The days of your stay

remain unchanged.

The Maid moves on.

MAID (CONT’D)

Room 302?

One of the waiters who escorted the hotel guests to the hunt answers her.

WARDEN WAITER

He never returned. Either he was

lost in the woods, was captured or…

he escaped.

MAID

If he doesn’t show up by noon

tomorrow, arrange for Room 302 to

be cleaned and prepared.

WARDEN WAITER

Alright.